Pages

Search This Blog

26 July, 2013

OK...
Get over it – everywhere there is civilization, there are rats.
They live in our trash, on our refuse and they proliferate everywhere
humans congregate.

Evidence of rodents feeding on corn

They
are pests of the garden and now they have come to feast on my corn –
my very valuable Glass Gem Popcorn and they are going to take the
whole crop unless I can find a way to stop them.

But
before we get to that... It's my fault. There are two stands of
corn in the garden. The other stand will come to fruition with very
little predation while the valuable Glass Gem stands very little
chance of producing anything at all for me. It's in the wrong place.

The
Glass Gem was placed in an area of convenience for me – near the
composting site of the garden. This is the wrong place to put
anything that rodents may want to eat because compost piles are
natural habitat for rodents plus they can venture out from the compost area
under some good weed cover and get into my corn unobserved. This
foils my number one anti-rodent defense: my local hawk.

Some
areas of the garden are never predated upon by rodents because the
rodents must cross ample open ground to feast on whatever is planted
and in that crossing, they are easy prey for the hawk. I did not
think of that when I selected this spot for the Glass Gem corn. The
rats or mice have only a few feet to cross and those few feet have
plants that can cover them – besides a hawk is not going to place
himself in a human made culvert between compost bins and tall corn
for any little morsel; there isn't enough take off/landing space to
protect him.

Now
I've got to play catch up – in desperation, I posted my dilemma on
Facebook and I got all kinds of answers. I want to look at each one
here and try to solve my problem in front of God and everyone.

Traps

Probably
the most recommended in the answers. Traps do a fair job of
targeting the pest species, which is vitally important to me. While I
have no problem killing insects, for example, I will not spray
because of the collateral damage caused by sprays – not only do I
kill the species I aim at, but most organic sprays are indiscriminate
in what they kill. Spray for aphids and you wipe out the lady bug
eggs that were laid nearby to feast on those same aphids – and
instead of solving my problem, I've only postponed it because ants
will bring more aphids back to recolonize the area and there will be
no lady bugs to oppose them.

I
have seen squirrels get bit by rat traps. The squirrel is not
killed, but the trap is attached to his leg and he will wear it until
he dies. Which one prays is soon, because the suffering must be
immense. I do NOT like squirrels one little bit, but I struggle with
inflicting that kind of suffering on any living thing. And if a
squirrel can be caught by one, why wouldn't a dog? Or a cat?

Traps
are out.

Cat

Speaking
of cats, they were the second most popular suggestion – they also
elicited the most responses and controversy. On one side, the
indignant cat rescuers and on the other, people who wrote me long
emails about the 'misguided' opposition to rodent-catching cats.

I
am from a farm. I grew up on a farm with many cats, all of whom got
very little food from humans – they were on their own to police the
barn and granaries. One of them lived to be thirteen (I was told,
certainly she was older than I was!), but that was the exception –
most had much shorter lifespans. Still, they were a part of the
working life of a farm.

However,
on Unified School District property it is out of the question –
it's against school policy. I don't get to vote.

Dog

Less
effective than cats, dogs were also mentioned. My experience makes
me think they are worthless; the one's I know think of rats running
around as a kind of free TV.

Poisons

Absolutely
a non-starter with me. Too many chances for non-target species to be
hurt.

That
pretty much shoots the whole lot of 'em down, doesn't it?

Except,
for me taking responsibility for a poor location and doing something
about it. Sixteen human hours late, the compost pile has been
relocated to a space not far from where it was before, but there is
15 feet of clear ground they will have to cross before they reach the
corn. Already, this morning, remnants of rodent were found adjacent
to the corn field.

This
will not result in 100% effectiveness. I don't need that. I am
willing to take some losses – I am NOT willing to lose everything
however. I am also going to cage some of the biggest and best ears
in hardware cloth to prevent those specific ears from being eaten.

06 July, 2013

These are all
generalizations and they apply to The Learning Garden, located
in Sunset Zone 24, less than 3 miles from the Pacific Ocean in
an alluvial plain that is barely above sea level. Cold air from the
surrounding higher elevations drains into our area and we are
reliably cooler than much of the surrounding areas.

If you are
growing inland from us, your temperatures will fluctuate more than
ours. The further from the ocean a person gardens, the temperatures
become less moderate and the effects of heat and cold are more
pronounced. While we can grow some cool season crops year round
(kale and chard for example), this becomes more difficult without the
ocean's pronounced influence.

Plant in
containers: lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, kale, chard, (these last
two can be started now, but they would have been better
started earlier – their production will be reduced by the coming
warmer weather), peas, fava beans, lentils, garbanzo beans

Otherwise: You
are looking in seed catalogs and reading books to figure out which
tomatoes, peppers, beans and other summer crops you will be planting.
You will order too many seeds despite promises to yourself to not do
it this year.

Plant in the
ground: all basil, eggplant, all melons and all squash (including
cucumbers, set out plants of same and all tomatoes, eggplants and
peppers) green and yellow beans and all the dried beans; corn too, if
you have room

Plant in
containers: As in April, but it's getting late – peppers, eggplants
and basil are still OK to start, but it's getting late, did I say it
was getting late?

JUNE

Plant in the
ground: all the above, but it's getting late... you can still get a
crop, but it will be cut shorter by any early cool weather; the last
of the corn can go in early in the month

Plant in
containers: after starting pumpkin seeds, take a nap

JULY

Plant in the
ground only out of necessity – extreme necessity

Plant in
containers: continue napping

Otherwise: You
can begin to think about your cool season seeds now. Get out them
catalogs and prepare to over-order those!

AUGUST

Plant in the
ground: nothing if you can avoid it

Plant in
containers: towards the end of the month, in a shaded location, the
first of the winter veggies can be started, cabbage, broccoli, kale,
chard, fava beans, leeks, shallots, onions...

Otherwise: You
DO have your cool season seeds ordered, yes?

SEPTEMBER

Plant in the
ground: nothing, until late in the month, start sowing turnips,
parsnips, radishes, beets and carrots – keep seeds moist! Peas,
lentils and garbanzo beans can be sown...

Plant in the
ground: by now you can begin to set out some of your cabbage,
broccoli, kale, cauliflower, chard and so on. Continue with seeds as
above... you can also direct sow favas if you want. Potatoes can
usually be found about now as well as sets or seed bulbs of onions,
garlic and shallots and they all should be planted from now until
late November.

Plant in
containers: More Cruciferae and favas, celery and
celeriac,

NOVEMBER

Plant in the
ground: More of September's plants can be sown – you still have
time for all of them except onions, this will be the last month to
plant peas, lentils, garbanzos, shallots, garlic and fava beans.
Their growing season is too long to get the harvest you would want.
Although the legumes can be planted if you are willing to take a
lesser harvest or are using them as a cover (green manure) crop.

Plant in
containers: I'm still sowing cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower, but
Brussels sprouts are a longer season item so they're not a part of my
efforts until next season's planting begins.

DECEMBER

Plant in the
ground: Too little light and too many parties make it difficult to
find garden time – but if you have some things left over from
November, try to get that done.

Plant in
containers: The same story, if you have time, do more of all that's
listed from November.

There
are two big shifts in Southern Californian gardening: At the end of
September, start of October it's all about the winter crops. At the
end of February, start of March, the focus all shifts to summer and
the heat lovers. Seeds are started before then (if you have the right
conditions, up to six weeks).

Corn standing tall in the garden promises good eating right around the corner. As a boy in Kansas, I knew my grandfather's goal every year was to harvest sweet ears by July 4th. He and his neighbors might bet hard earned money on who would harvest their crop first. Most years he was the surely the winner! Since corn takes a lot of room, many Los Angelenos will need to purchase this treat at their local farmers' markets.

July
brings
hot weather. Finally.
Now is the time to get a cool drink

and
say hello to summer in our Southern California gardens.

For
this reason alone, I insist that no garden should be created without
seating for the gardener to glory in the work that has been done.
This is not the month to do a lot of planting, if you can help it at
all. Water is
what your garden wants along with some weeding and harvesting. Don’t
just pour water on your garden without exercising your noggin!
Monitor the soil moisture and apply water as needed – but before
plants begin to wilt. Try to water when less will be lost to
evaporation – early in the day or late in the day, even under the
full moon, listening to the owls. Stick a finger in the soil up to
the first knuckle. Better
yet, turn over a small spot of soil with your trowel. It should be
slightly moist down about an inch or so. The surface of the soil can
be quite dry and that's fine. A gardener is more concerned with the
moisture level in that part of the soil where roots live.

It
is most important to have water at the roots of plants – spraying
water into the air to fall on the soil, is not very efficient. A
lot of that water can be blown away from your plants (on to the
neighbors!) and a lot evaporates off into the air. It is not very
efficient at all. But there are other ways to to water that are
better. All these other ways involve putting the water close to the
root zone. The two ways to do this include some of the newest
technology and some of the oldest technology. The newest technology
is drip irrigation; the oldest is called an 'olla' – pronounced
OYE-ya. Variations of ollas are found in several different ancient
cultures and there is a move to put them back into gardens today.

But
before we get to that, we need to know some things about water and
how it moves in the soil. First of all, water 'sticks' to itself.
If you over fill a glass of water to where it is actually higher than
the edge of the glass, it often can hold together and not run down
the side of the glass. The tendency of water to stick together is
one of the qualities that make water so valuable a part of our world.
So as water moves, it pulls other water along behind it.

Water
moves down in the soil because of gravity. Water moves up and out of
the soil into the atmosphere because of evaporation. Water moves
sideways in the soil when pulled along by plant roots pulling water
molecules out of the soil, which drags other molecules along behind.
Water fans out from the point it drips into the soil to a more narrow
or wider 'fan' depending on the composition of the soil; sandy soil,
with it's large pore space allows the water to move more downward
than outward. Clay soil, on the other hand, with small particles
tightly packed causes water to expand outward much more dramatically
than sandy soil.

Now,
on to getting water to your plants' roots!

Drip
irrigation has gotten a lot of attention over the last twenty years.
A number of people who have played with drip, myself included, have
come to feel it is less than 'as advertised.' In the first place,
drip irrigation is a lot of plastic parts. On the other hand,
compared to an underground irrigation system that are very expensive
and difficult to install, drip systems are cheap
and easy!

But
back on the first hand, they are also relatively impermanent.
Plastic can be easily broken – and therein lies the tale of drip.
The plastic seems to develop a magnetic attraction for shovels and
other sharp instruments, which means it must be repaired constantly.
Wild animals also find the plastic tubing an easy source for water –
just make the hole a little larger and there is another repair
awaiting your attention. Anyone who depends on a drip system, soon
learns to observe the entire system while it's running at least once
a month. The observation, done more with one's ears than one's
because you can hear the water making noises that it would not make
if the system was still working properly. Furthermore, the pattern
of wetness in the soil made by drip is not ideal for a number of
plants. Plants did not evolve to gather water from a single spot
with no water before or after that spot. For some plants, this is a
problem – especially the 'drought-resistant' plants.

Part
of their strategy is to find water over a much wider range than less
drought tolerant plants. As a consequence for a lot of the drought
resistant plants, drip irrigation is a problem more than a solution.
This is particularly difficult for the California Native plant
palette than it is for plants that have been in the care of humans
over the past hundreds of years. California Native plants tend to
not do so well with drip irrigation.

Finally,
every replanting of a food crop, requires the drip lines to be rolled
up to facilitate preparing the bed and planting. This is a
cumbersome project at best and is a disaster for the drip system at
worst.

Drip
has a lot of drawbacks although it does deliver water to the roots
with relatively little loss of water to the atmosphere and does
reduce water waste. There is one other recent change that updates
drip to what is called a 'leaky pipe or hose.' This technology has
most of the good qualities of drip but is easily to deal with and the
leaky hose sweats water all along its length which means there is a
zone of wetness in the soil, more closely approximating natural
conditions and the hose is less of a hassle to repair or move. It's
not perfect but this is a reasonable choice for non-permanent
plantings.

Ollas
on the other hand, are a lot more permanent and are not made of
plastic. Made of clay, an olla (Spanish for 'pot,' as in 'soup pot.'
) is porous and water 'leaks' out. The olla is buried in the soil,
then filled with water which seeps into the soil, spreading out to
water nearby plants. How far the water moves in the soil is
different according to the soil's texture, and needs to be tested for
some accurate figures, but one can make some educated guesses in
short order. Ollas are not a good candidate for trees and perennials
with woody roots. They are also somewhat fragile, but not as much as
drip parts and they are not made from oil like plastic. Ollas do not
have to be moved to plant a bed, as long as you are not tilling the
soil in any way, and, of course, in my style of gardening, that isn't
done. Ollas are absolutely fabulous in planted containers.

Olla with a tomato plant in a ceramic planter- a good use of an olla that shows off all their good qualities perfectly.

But
do take steps to find ways to control the amount of water that is put
in your garden – and no matter how you get water to the roots, make
sure you mulch the beds thoroughly and save the water you do put down
from evaporating off into the atmosphere.

Check the mulch
level this month; insure it is deep enough to keep roots cool and
prevent evaporation of the precious water you are putting down. I
don't use fertilizer, which means my plants are never over-fertilized
and with the constant use of compost and mulch, they are well
supplied with all they really need to thrive.
I
am cautious about using really good compost that might have a lot of
nitrogen in it on tomatoes. They tend to use up all the nitrogen you
give them by growing very large and healthy-looking plants and not
setting fruit. For our climate, this
isn't a disaster, you just have fresh tomatoes in September and
October. But if you don't want to wait that long for tomato season
to start, skip fertilizer or so-called 'hot' compost. Save it for
corn which is a notoriously heavy feeder.

I mentioned this
isn't a good planting month. There was that huge list of all I was
supposed to get all done last month, remember? I probably didn't
and you might have a few things to wrap up too. With
care, it is still possible to sow beans and, for those of us with the
room, corn. It's
also possible to sow another planting of summer squash and if the
pickle gods smile on you, more cucumbers. Some of the real heat
loving veggies can be set out, like more peppers or tomato plants.
If you
enjoy
eggplant, you might set out another plant or two at this time, they
will extend your harvest. But remember these late plantings will
need extra water (try to plant them in the late afternoon – and try
very hard to minimize root damage when you transplant them). The
problem with planting now is that the leaves can easily transpire
much more water than the small root system can take up. If these
plants have been growing in the same amount of sunlight that they
will get in the ground, they stand a much better chance of survival.
But wilted leaves the following afternoon suggest the root system is
not keeping pace with the lost moisture. Unless
your little darlings put on enough roots quickly, or you can do some
judicious, temporary shading, your crop might not make it to a
productive adulthood. With tomatoes, a little pruning of leaves from
the plant will cut down on the water loss and the plant will put the
leaves back on as soon as its root system can handle it.

Unless
the weather cooperates and you are lucky beyond all expectation, I
would suggest that getting summer plants in the ground after the
Summer Solstice is more likely than not, a waste of time. I have
done it and won. I have done it and lost. But before you begin to
plant a lot of summer stuff after June 21st
or so, you might want to consider holding off for a couple of months
and starting with a winter garden.

In our climate, especially
in that part of the west coast that gets a lot of Pacific Ocean
influence, growing the cucurbits can be a challenge because the
moisture in the air allows mildew to grow and kill these plants. The
cucurbits are cucumbers, squashes, melons and pumpkins (which are
really a squash) and they are particularly susceptible to getting
mildew. It can be hard, in some years with heavy 'June Gloom' to get
a good crop. There are some remedies for mildew but I haven't tried
any yet. Perhaps this is year I’ll actually try a baking soda and
water mixture on mildew and report back to you later. Up to now,
I've simply gotten rid of the infected plant and grown another. It's
usually only a hassle with winter squash which take longer to ripen,
summer squash, the yellow crooknecks and zucchinis produce a lot of
food quickly, so a replant will keep you up to your ears in zukes, if
you don't get enough from the first harvest.

Summer squash is
called that because you eat it in summer. This includes all those
zucchini, patty pans, crooknecks, and the squashes the British call
'marrow' and 'courgettes.' They are characterized by soft skin and
will rot if you keep them around too long without refrigeration.
Winter squash, on the other hand, which includes pumpkins, are so
named because they can keep for many months and provide food over
the winter months. It is their hard outer shell that allows them to
be a part
of a winter diet in a world without refrigeration and be transported
easily over thousands of miles. Our ancestors relied on the keeping
ability of winter squashes to hold starvation at bay. Keeping winter
squashes edible for a long period of time in Southern California is a
challenge because we don't have root cellars to store them in a cool
and dry place.
Gardeners with small gardens have trouble with most winter squashes
because of the space they take up.

The avalanche of ripe
harvest should begin to worry you before July is halfway through.
Tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, beans, corn, zucchini, stone fruits and
others will begin to overwhelm a gardener. Keep the harvest coming by
picking when ripe promptly and finding ways to keep the produce for
later or share your abundance with neighbors, friends or send it off
to a local food bank – there are many who can't grow their own food
and can't feed themselves and their families good, clean (sans
pesticides) nutritious meals. No one should be forced to consume
'instant' food just because they are poor.

Zucchini and
summer squashes are a special concern. A four inch squash on
Tuesday will resemble a caveman's club by Friday and won't be as
tasty and tender. Any summer squash will do that.; only
neophyte gardeners will brag about how big their zucchinis get, they
get that big whenever you don't pick them in time – it's not
something to brag about, but something to be embarrassed about! The
ones we call 'zucchini' arethe
quickest to grow to laughable sizes. It's the reason for a
million recipes for Zucchini Bread, Zucchini Casserole, Zucchini
Lasagna. (I
have even eaten a Zucchini Crumble, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon,
which was pretty good as long I avoided the bites with zucchini
pieces.) Once zucchini get much beyond the four to six inch
size, they aren't all that tasty and begin to get woody. Harvest
them early and often. Like voting in Chicago!

Melons are a
challenge for those of us on the coast. Cantaloupe and honeydew
melons should have a wilted tendril at the stem end of the fruit and
should smell ripe (read as “mouth waters when smelling”).
Watermelons are much more difficult to tell; when I was twelve, one
infamous melon outsmarted me, my grandfather and the judges at a
county fair by winning a blue ribbon and being as green as the
proverbial Martian. I only know to thump them-- listening for an
almost hollow sound, to determine ripeness, and despite that
aforementioned melon, I have been really good at since I was eight.
One miss in almost fifty years of thumping is a better record than
any baseball pitcher you can name.

Cucumbers are not so much a
challenge – as soon a cucumber is big enough for you, snag it.
There are many different varieties of cucumber and it would be
impossible to list each and every one because they come
in different sizes and shapes. Suffice it to say that Japanese
cucumbers and Armenian cukes are able to get quite large and still be
delicious!
Not so with other varieties. I know a lot of folks get goo-goo eyed
about 'Lemon' cucumbers, but I don't share the love. Some say you
have to wait until they turn yellow before they are good to eat. I
think they are never that
good no matter when you pick them and they are stupendously big and
rangy plants.
In
addition, the smaller the fruit you have to peel, the more work it is
to get it on the table. I'll
go with the Japanese or Armenian cucumbers – highly productive and
delicious!

The harvesting of corn is another that begs a few
words. The first time I saw folks in Los Angeles trying to choose
ripe corn in the market, I was completely blown away! I had never
seen people pull back the Check (the leaves covering the ear) to see
if the corn had filled out the cob or to see how large the kernels
were. Although, I suppose if you hadn't picked it yourself, these
points might be suspect. As a child on a farm that sold sweet corn
all summer long, I learned to merely feel through the leaves to 'see'
what was underneath. Corn sold in markets – even farmers' markets
– is usually picked after it's past the optimum stage – and
non-gardeners are likely to prefer it. It is a 'more = better' kind
of thinking. But corn kernels that have gotten big and fat are not
as juicy and not nearly as tender. Smaller,
as is often the case with vegetables, is better.

The
tassel on a corn plant are the 'boy flowers' and the silks are the
'girl flowers.' The pollen falls from the tassel onto the silks and
that causes the kernels – really the seed of the next crop of corn
– to grow. Each kernel has its own silk. If
you
find a cob with a 'vacancy,' no kernel where there should be, that is
where
one silk that did not get pollinated.

If
you experience worms in your corn, or you fear you will although I
don't know how you can see into the future, as soon as you can see
silks, put a couple of drops of mineral oil in the spot where they
emerge from the shuck. The worms will find that an impassible
barrier and you'll have worm free corn. To harvest, feel the ear.
It
may take some training, but after a time, your tactile explorations
will enable you to feel the ripe (and full ear). Leave
the underdeveloped still on the plant. Grab the ear firmly and pull
slightly out and down in one compelling motion to
liberate it from the plant. The top and bottom ends will need
trimming to find the actual ear in all that you have in your hand.
As above, you can find it by careful touch.

In this season of
heat, don't neglect yourself when you are in the garden. The sun we
experience today is not the same sun our grandparents faced. With
ozone depletion, it is much easier to contract
skin cancer, so take steps to avoid having to deal with that. I know
the popular method to avoid overexposure is to slather on lots of sun
screen, but I don't find that a realistic alternative for a person in
the sun almost every day. In the first place, I'm concerned that all
that goop eventually gets washed off our bodies and goes into the
waste stream where there is no provision to deal with. It isn't one
of the substances ameliorated by city sewage treatment and so flows
out into nature where we don't have a clue what it does. It's just
another human pollutant and no one has bothered to investigate to
determine it's harmful or benign. In my world, I prefer to deal with
our environment, by always assuming the safest course of action and
take exceeding care not
to damage the only world we have.

I
continue to wear long pants and long sleeved shirts even on hot days.
I have several that are quite light and let the breeze flow through.
It is one way to avoid harmful rays.
I am as comfortable – or as
uncomfortable – as the next person. Of
course, I strongly suggest a hat which you
see me wear daily, not only for the interdiction of the sun, but as a
way of shielding my eyes and keeping cooler. Besides, a hat is the
epitome of fashion! Almost all good gardeners wear them!

And
while we are on this tangent, consider your number one tool set in
the garden: your hands. This is one set of tools you cannot replace
or upgrade so it's best to take good care of them at all times. For
gardeners, the feel of earth in their fingers is one of the true joys
– and feeling of connection –one
can experience. However, the hands can also get injured easily in a
garden so take a few steps back and consider how to protect them.
When doing repetitive tasks that abrade your skin, wear gloves. Have
more than one pair: one for moist work that has a moisture barrier of
some kind, one for light work (goatskin gloves are marvelous to the
touch – they contain a lanolin that works wonders on your hand
while you work) and a heavy leather pair for hard work. The goatskin
and heavy leather gloves can now be replaced by some non-animal
products that are almost as protective. You will find good
selections of gloves from your local nursery and your local big box
store, Mail order gardening companies' catalogs display
the full range of gloves that are available. Never
buy a glove you find uncomfortable. It
will discourage you from wearing that pair as often as you might need
to. Keep your gloves pinned together when not wearing them or you'll
end up with a glove for one hand and another glove for the other
hand, or worse, all the same hand will be missing! I use a an
electric cable 'alligator' clip to which I have attached a piece of
wire in a hook shape to slip in my belt loop – other friends use a
simple clip clothespin. Find out what works for you, but have your
gloves on hand (sorry) for your gardening adventures.Is
your tetanus shot up to date? Talk to
your doctor – this shot should be renewed every 5-10 years and you
should strive
to remain current.
Recommendations
about this, change over the years, like most other medical advice, so
talk it over with your doctor to see what course of action you should
take. You don't have to garden on a
former dump site to be surprised by a nail or broken piece of glass.
So while soil is one of the safer substances in its natural state
(penicillin was concocted from a soil mold), soils in the city are
often troublesome.

In the evening, grab some lemonade and
contemplate your garden. You are awesome – you are growing food
you can eat. Aren't you glad you put a seat in your garden? When
you are done with your reverie, go inside and write me an email about
how happy you are. Enclose a donation...

Look
at June if you want to try to plant anything, but my advice? Try to
avoid planting in July if you can.

Lavender
Honey Ice Cream

It's time to cool
down! At the Learning Garden we have a 4th of July Ice
Cream Social and this is one of our annual favorites – I can't wait
to supply the honey for this ice cream from one of my hives!

INGREDIENTS (for
2 quarts):

1½ cup honey

2 sprigs of fresh
lavender

2 cups half and
half

4 cups of
whipping cream

6 egg yolks

DIRECTIONS:

Warm the honey
with the lavender in a non-corroding saucepan. Taste after five
minutes to check the strength of the lavender flavor and leave a
little longer if necessary, until the flavor pleases you.

Heat the half and
half and cream in a non-corroding saucepan and whisk the egg yolks in
a bowl until they are just broken up. Whisk in some of the hot cream
and return to the pan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly,
until the mixture coats the spoon. Strain into a container and stir
in the flavored honey. Chill thoroughly.

When you are
ready to freeze the mixture, remove the vanilla bean pods. Freeze
according to the instructions of your ice cream maker.

05 July, 2013

Thanks to Lucia for this great PR shot in front ofthe SLOLA banner no less!

Sometimes
I get so damn busy, I have to make a list for myself to figure it out
– so why not share it with you. If you aren't tired of hearing me
yet, add these events to your calendar:

06
July – Growing Food In Southern California This is my monthly what
to do and when to do it class at The Learning Garden. From 10 AM to
noon, the first Saturday of every month, I hold forth on your monthly
chores in the garden – and answer your gardening questions. It's
$20 at the gate. This month, will be a special lecture that covers
the entire year as far as crop rotation, harvesting and when and what
to plant to maximize your yields in Southern California. A special
lecture with some special give aways.

07
July – The Seed Library of Los Angeles presents at the Green
Tent at the Mar Vista Farmers' Market from 9 AM to 2 PM. Here is
their blog post on the event:

SAFEGUARDING
OUR SEEDS

The Seed
Library of Los Angeles facilitates
growing open-pollinated seeds among Los Angeles residents. It is
building a library of these seeds and educating all gardeners how to
save seeds while creating a community of seed-saving gardeners.

Purple Maize

In
doing this, it is preserving a genetic treasure, traditionally passed
from generation to generation, and ensuring that multinational
corporations do not gain a monopoly on our food supply and destroy
this vital resource against hunger. It is safeguarding these seeds as
viable alternatives against genetically engineered food, making
certain that a portion of our food supply is wholesome and GMO free.

The
Seed Library is the continuation of the sacred trust passed from
parent to child to grandchild of these seeds and its members
understand their role in this pan-generational dance. Learn how to be
a part of this wonderful and vital enterprise that allows an
individual to fight back against the untested technology of GMOs.

Corn
Pollination

David
King is the Founding Chair of the Seed Library of Los Angeles, a
three year old organization that already has over 600 members and a
library of over 300 varieties of seed and is the Gardenmaster of The
Learning Garden on
the grounds of Venice High School, one of our neighborhood's best
sources for horticultural information.

12
and 13 July – God's Green Earth Festival at Venice Beach, CA
From their promo materials: Based in the heart of Venice Beach,
at Windward Plaza, God’s Green Earth Festival promises to be an
exciting event for all! Venice Parks and Recreation confirms that
Venice Beach will see more than 100,000 visitors over the
course of the weekend we are there. As attractions to those crowds,
we will be featuring 2 solar-powered sound stages, environmental
speakers, professional skateboarding, and “green” Exhibitor
booths to attract visitors from the boardwalk and bike path.

Times
for SLOLA speakers, including myself, to be announced

20
July is the actual meeting day of the Seed Library of Los Angeles –
Featured Speaker is Claudia Laufer, L.Ac. on locally grown food
versus food that is imported from non-local souces. Learn of the
health benefits and importance of heirlooms vs. regular plants based
on nutritional content, the importance of eating seasonal and the
effects of factory farming on health vs. your own "medicinal"
food garden. I chair the meeting and we will have some announcements about several upcoming events you won't want to have to hear second hand!

I'll
post more as the details become more clear. Your
support in all this is greatly appreciated!